What to do about distressed tape?

Active member

A while back you helped Cyndygreen with a tape mystery. Now I am facing a simliar problem with a DV tape I shot with a Canon XL2 from a friend.
I placed the camera at the back of the audience for my wide shots. My main camera was closer to the stage for the performance.

When I tried to digitize the XL2 footage, the tape playback choppy. The audio came in short bursts. No, the heads were not dirty--there was no banding on the tape.

My guess is the tape head are out of alingment. I have tried different decks and different camcorders. Each one yeilding a different result. The closest I've gotten to normal playback is in my Canon HV40. The video appears fluid, but no audio.

My question to you is should I try to complete my project by digitizing the tape with the HV40 or should I send the tape to a videotape repair shop hope the expense is worth it?

Member

Is the dropped fame causing your import to stop? There may be an option, depending on your system, to defeat that so it continues to record. A few years ago, in the tape to tape era, I was in a similar situation and had to add White frames to cover the distorted video frames, I tried to make it look like flash photography by varying the intensity of the white level and the duration. It wasn't perfect but It covered it up.

Active member

Yes, my Firewire import does freeze up. So I decided to try the S-video In with a TBC, which worked better. There were less dropped frames but some frames still had blemishes. So far, I've able to skirt most of the bad frames staying on the main camera, maybe longer than I would have liked-- being this is a concert video.